A test of manipulation

Regarding Common Core testing, there are two possibilities: Either the new computerized testing will tell the truth about what students know and are able to do or it won’t.

Whether the scores are high or low doesn’t matter. The questions that most students get correct will be eliminated because they are too easy, and the ones that most students get wrong will be eliminated because they are too hard. The tests are not designed to get at the truth but rather to separate students and to get a distribution of scores that looks like the outline of a bell. Test makers force this pattern onto students.

Is it at all probable that a teacher can teach a lesson so well that all students understand the concept very well? Not according to these test-makers. If that did happen, give another test with questions that will show who knows more and who less, not who knows what is required. They want to preserve their preconceived and educationally inappropriate notion of what real learning is all about.

Oh, there is the possibility that the only thing this testing measures is how well a student can manipulate the computer regardless of the questions.

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